Girls send more texts than boys, Ofcom says

Teenage girls aged 12 to 15 send more text messages and make more phone calls than boys of the same age, a new survey has found.

Research by regulator Ofcom also found that almost half of these girls claim a mobile phone is the device they would miss most if it was taken away, compared to 29 per cent of boys, reports dailymail.co.uk.

Overall, girls are considered to prefer more ‘sociable’ media than boys. Although both are equally active on social networking sites, girls tend to favour apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr, notes telegraph.co.uk. This may reflect the ability for sharing photos and content with friends that these sites offer, suggested Ofcom.

Only one social media site attracted more boys than girls – video sharing website YouTube. Ofcom found that boys aged 12 to15 are twice as likely to use the site as girls the same age.

Other surprising results from the research showed that one in three children aged five to 15 in the UK now has their own tablet, and rate it as ‘more important’ to them than a TV. The percentage of children owning a tablet has risen 19 per cent since last year.

For the first time the number of five to 15 year olds using a laptop or PC to surf the internet fell this year by three per cent. Now, 42 per cent instead use a tablet to go online, a percentage that has doubled since last year.